Domination and Emancipation: Remaking Critique

by Daniel Benson (Editor)

Overview

A melancholy defeatism has become a hallmark of critical thought and leftist politics. A consequence of this has been an exaggerated focus on domination among critical theorists, leaving emancipation—along with questions of political organization and strategy—undertheorized at best, or disregarded as delusional, at worst. If emancipation still plays a role in critical reflection, it is most often in a “domesticated” form, made into a bedfellow of centrist liberalism.

Recent events necessitate a different outlook, especially since the financial collapse of 2008 and the myriad movements—emancipatory as much as reactionary—it has spawned throughout the world. Through a series of dialogues and reflections by leading thinkers, scholars, and activists, Domination and Emancipation: Remaking Critique seeks to rebuild the emancipatory pole of critique and bring forward theoretical work that is in step with the struggles and aspirations of the moment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538199176
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/25/2024
Series:	Reinventing Critical Theory
Pages:	316
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.71(d)

About the Author

Daniel Benson is assistant professor of Foreign Languages and International Cultural Studies at St. Francis College. His writing has appeared in journals including Diacritics, Critical Review of Contemporary French Fixxion, and Left History.

Table of Contents

Note on Translations

Introduction

Daniel Benson

Part I: Dialogues

1 Domination and Emancipation: For a Revival of Social Critique

Luc Boltanski and Nancy Fraser

2 Domination and Emancipation in the Current Conjuncture

Philippe Corcuff and Gabriel Rockhill

Part II: Emancipatory Subjects

3 Emancipation, Political and Real

Asad Haider

4 On a Critical Realist Theory of Identity

Rosaura Sánchez

Part III: Counter-Histories

5 Critical and Revolutionary Theory: For the Reinvention of Critique in the Age of Ideological Realignment

Gabriel Rockhill

6 Like a Riot: The Politics of Forgetfulness, Relearning the South, and the Island of Dr. Moreau Françoise Vergès

Part IV: Critical Tensions

7 Emancipation, Domination, and Critical Theory in the Anthropocene

Ajay Singh Chaudhary

8 Renewing Critical Theory in an Ultra-Conservative Context: between the Social Sciences, Political Philosophy, and Emancipatory Engagement

Philippe Corcuff

9 Politics in Tensions. Counter-Currents for a Post-Critical Age

Yves Citton

Notes on Contributors

Editorial Reviews

The European Enlightenment displaced the theological hubris of the cero point installed by Western Christian theology. Its exportation and importation to Spain and to the Spanish colonies, had enormous political repercussions. Santiago Castro-Gómez masterfully traces this trajectory Eurocentric expansion in a tour the force that shifts the gaze and looks at Europe from the existential and historical perspective of the Spanish colonies.

Walter D. Mignolo

A wide-ranging, timely, and provocative set of reflections on the current state of critical theory in the broad sense of that term. Combining theoretical sophistication with deep political engagement, this volume breathes new life into old questions about the shape and direction that the emancipatory critique of domination should take in our present.

Amy Allen, Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, USA

Amy Allen

What will emancipation look like in the 21st century? This book makes an important contribution in exploring this issue, that will be of interest to academics and activists alike. It combines theoretical approaches with the analysis of the most important events of our times: the environmental crisis, the rise of a global far-right “populist” current, or the transformations of social movements in the digital age, among others.

Razmig Keucheyan

What will emancipation look like in the 21st century? This book makes an important contribution in exploring this issue, that will be of interest to academics and activists alike. It combines theoretical approaches with the analysis of the most important events of our times: the environmental crisis, the rise of a global far-right “populist” current, or the transformations of social movements in the digital age, among others.
Razmig Keucheyan, professor of sociology at the University of Paris, France

From the Publisher